WHACKED!
by Being Serious
Summary: LD takes the world with a grain of salt, and the world takes even less of LD. After, what was supposed to be, a simple "job," LD's life gets thrown for a loop. Now she has a problem, well, three to be exact: Lester, Jeeves and Darwin. The Tremor Brothers
1. Chapter 1

My name's LD. Yep, that's it. L. D. I'm not going to tell you what it's short for, frankly I don't think you'd remember it anyway. I'm a Jersey girl, not the type you're used to seeing on the television, I'm about as tan as a polar bear with a chest size equivalent to a twelve year old boy with fashion sense as sharp as a spoon. I fall into a category of a sexual identity so lovingly called "gender-queer," I don't much care for the label, but I haven't come up with anything better, when I do you'll be the first to know. Biologically all the parts match up, but physically I'm about as feminine as a glass eating contest at a Navy Seal get together. You can find me on such sites as PlentyofFish listing hobbies like: breaking and entering, murdering countless people, looting their dead corpses and taking long walks on the beach. As you can guess I haven't gotten many responses, though the local authorities have taken a particular interest in me. I can't say I'm all too flattered, it's actually kind of embarrassing when your state stalkers chase you down the street with cars that light up like mobile Christmas trees. If there's one thing to say for them, they're incredibly determined! I mean, who wouldn't want me? I'm funny, charming and come with a pretty sweet dowry. Try a couple zeroes, like, five.

My name's LD, I'm an assassin for hire, wanted in twelve states for about seventy five different crimes (each one worded slightly different from the next) and completely... _fucked. _Not the good kind of fucked either and not even the hey-i-can-get-out-of-this fucked. I mean FUCKED. Here I was, this great assassin (my words), loaded into the back of some moving vehicle without a spark of insight going through my head. I suppose all those synapses and cells were "Out to Lunch."

Now, rather than try to piece together my day, I quietly wondered to myself, "What would they possibly eat? Little grilled cheeses?" I wonder if science has figured out a way to make them. I bet they're delicious. After a moment of pondering how exactly one would go about making such a miniscule meal for the mind, I finally began to put together the puzzle of my life as of now:

1. I was in a car  
>2. It wasn't my car<br>3. I don't even own a car

Well, one thing was for sure – there was a car involved. Next question. God I wish highschool had been this easy! That wasn't the question, that was a statement. Here's the question: How had I ended up there? Well, seeing as I wasn't behind the wheel of the car (which was good considering my condition) I hadn't intended driving. I had been passed out in the back seat with my face pressed up against the rubber piecing of the window, no doubt putting an attractive crease in my skin. So, logically, I had either crawled in for a good nap or was placed there by someone else.

Judging by the throbbing pain in the back of my skull, I knew the former was out of the question. So then, who had dragged me into the backseat? And furthermore, where the hell were they carting my unconscious ass?

My initial reaction was the police, after all, there was only room for one man in this outfit. One too many hands on the job and things start to get ugly. So without partners to drive a getaway, a wanted man's next instinct brought me to the coppers. And for one terrifying minute, I thought I had been caught, and that of course was against rule numero uno.

Poor LD, finally picked up by the law, destined to live the rest of her life away behind bars, carving shivs out of soap hoping to stab her captors to cleanliness. Choke on the bubbles you bastards!

For some reason I couldn't quite get my eyes to open and when I finally managed only one of them decided to peel away. It took a long moment for the other to follow and even when both of my eyes were open, if only partially, I could barely make out the people in the car. I think if I were fully aware of the predicament I _really_ was in, I wouldn't have worried so much about being picked up by cops. There are plenty worse things that could have been behind the wheel: a giant cockroach is a pretty good example

– one of the Tremor Brothers is another.

Imagine that - one assassin picked up by three others who had incidentally been assigned the same hit that previous night. And the less intelligent part of me (I won't mention any names here, but it starts with "S" and ends with "tomach") wondered: "Are we going to stop for food?" While the rest of my shouted: "Is this really the time?" And then my brain agreed… with my stomach.

"Look who's up,"

"Ughhuu" is what came out of my mouth. I don't think Shakespeare couldn't have written better words.

I pulled myself away from the window, bringing gloved hands to my eyes as I wiped away the sleep. I guess I couldn't really call it sleep. Typically you remember going, this was more of a got-knocked-the-fuck-out. It was only now I realized the throbbing in my head, a feeling equivalent to what would be felt after a three year old first discovers the musical qualities of a cabinet full of pans. During my sluggish waking stupor I noticed I was still dressed in my "work clothes." Though it wasn't so much a uniform as it was falling into a rack of clearance gear at your local army surplus store: leather pants tucked into tightly laced and buckled boots, flak jacket over wife beater donned with too many pockets and ammunition packs to count* and to bring the whole thing together: elbow and knee pads. Scraped elbows suck more than a bullet I tell you.

I pressed the balls of my palms into my eye sockets, watching the fireworks that crossed beneath my eyelids in hopes that one pain would mask the other. Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way and now in addition to a splitting headache, my eyes hurt. I pulled back, dropping my hands to my knees as I stretched my neck back, looking up to the ceiling with a hearty sigh. I had an amazing urge right then to curl up into a pathetic ball and throw up all over the floor. There was a very good chance the previous night I had foolishly decided to test out NASA's latest amusement park ride: the spinning tea-cups of death, now strapped with rocket engines! The world is still spinning.

"Th' fuck," I finally found my voice, a raspy thing, broken from drowsiness and pain. There were plenty of other things I could have said, "What happened?" or "Who are you" maybe even a courteous warning, "I may very well toss my cookies on the fine interior of your car," but I went with a simple, "The fuck." Eh, it covered the basics. I already knew who they were anyway, well, sort of. It wasn't like we were on a first name basis or anything, just that anyone who was anyone in the business knew who the Tremors were: a couple of tough as shit rednecks with a certain adoration for fire arms and **zero** common sense. These were the type of guys that could watch a man flail frantically in a puddle of his own blood, partially severed arm flopping like a fish outta water, and damn near piss themselves laughing.

I don't know why they hadn't killed me and honestly I don't think they knew either.

"Have a nice sleep?" the man across from me grinned, snickering along with his brothers as if "Have a nice sleep?" was some kind of hilarious joke and I was the butt of it.

I wouldn't exactly say he was what I expected when I had heard stories of the infamous Tremor Brothers. Generally when you hear such tales your mind starts putting together these images, how you expect a person to be, like when you're chatting with some hot babe online that turns out to be a forty year old man living in his mother's basement, overweight, with bad acne and balding. When I heard Tremor, I literally thought of bears with machine gun arms. But this kid was about as close to bear-like as a ferret was a fish. He lounged in the back seat like it were the most expensive couch, arm stretched over the back of the chair cushion, other bent under his head to keep it from knocking against the window. He was thin, about as muscular as the toothpick he chewed on, with a lazy blonde Mohawk that didn't know which way it wanted to fall and all sorts of things-that-would-make-your-mother-cry etched into his skin. His style of choice included a pair of ratty jeans, a just as ratty wife beater and a set of scratched up goggles. I pegged him for the leader.

"What's going on?" I managed to croak. It hadn't been hard to establish what had happened, there were very few possibilities that could have led me to this road, packed in the back seat of some beat to shit Pontiac that some archeologist had dug up during the excavation of the first ever dinosaur, with three wayward assassins.

Option 1: I had gotten completely smashed before/during/after "work" and made some new friends  
>Option 2. I fell down a flight of stairs, or,<br>Option 3: My new friends had hit me over the head with some sort of blunt instrument during the thrill of battle.

I was inclined to think Option 3 was the correct choice here.

"It ain't fuckin' funny, Lester." I think if I had been within some sort of sound state of mind, the sudden gruff response from the driver would have set me on edge. He reached over and landed a solid punch in the tittering passenger's shoulder. It did little to stifle Lester's obvious enjoyment in my pain, causing him to shake that much more violently as he laughed that much harder. I'm not a rocket scientist or anything, but I think I figured out who was the culprit here. Apparently knocking me over the head had been funny as hell.

"I'm Darwin, that's Lester, and Jeeves," the kid sitting in the back with me indicated each of his brothers with a point of his finger.

Lester (the one who had apparently knocked me into unconsciousness) was the passenger seat rider (and if you ask me, a complete moron**). He was a couple inches shorter than Darwin, that or just slouched unhealthily in his seat, and unlike his two brothers preferred being bald. Subsequently he had shaved his entire head save for the patches of sideburns (go ahead and ask me how I think it looks. Stupid***). Today he proudly displayed the tattoos scrawled into his pasty white skin, wearing only a pair of red pants tucked into his muddied army boots. He was still giggling over the hilarity of my splitting headache.

And then there was Jeeves. I know exactly what you're thinking! With a name like "Jeeves" I was totally expecting a sweet old man dressed like a penguin, elegant suit maybe a curly mustache offering me a tray of hors d'oeuvres. Reality was a complete shocker. He was about the height of your average building, with a relaxed Mohawk that during the previous night had been coaxed up into spikes the size of fence posts with a face that said "Fuck. Hate." Ok no wait, those were the tattoos on his biceps. But seriously, I was glad he was behind the wheel rather than sitting next to me.

"Uhgh," I groaned. Now...I could introduce myself truthfully or lie. I doubt that if I chose the latter a couple of trailer park boys would catch it. Then I remembered how we had "met," more like how insert-some-object-here met my head and my face met floor. "LD," we'll go with truth.

"The Spider," Jeeves drawled. I didn't expect my reputation to precede me...I'm not sure that was a good thing. Personally, I wasn't exactly partial to the nickname, I guess I was just lucky the tabloids didn't decide to call me something like "The polka-dotted frog," or anything else just as terrifying.

"I like takin' the legs off dem big spiders," added Lester.

This put a grin like the Cheshire Cat's on Darwin's face and I knew that this had gone from _fucked_ to _seriously fucked. _And I, once again, found my day becoming a slew of pop quiz questions. 'You are traveling down the road at approximately 280 mph with three trigger happy assassins. One decides he wants to rip your legs off, the second thinks this is a good idea and the third is busy driving the car therefore indifferent to the decision (of course if his hands were free he'd be all for it). What do you do?

**A.** Attempt to fight them and hope that your one year membership to Planet Fitness pays off (even though you've been coincidentally "too busy" to attend a single day)  
><strong>B.<strong> Talk your way out of it  
><strong>C.<strong> Let them rip your legs off (Eh, legs are too mainstream anyway)

So I thought about my options while they thought about how exactly they were going to go about removing my limbs. Very tough decisions on both our parts I tell you. Now, Option A was definitely out, physical fighting isn't exactly my strong point, the last fight I won was against a bag of skittles. And now you're probably wondering "LD! You're an assassin though!" and I'll say, "Have you ever seen a spider beat a man in a fist fight?" If I could do _that_ they wouldn't be calling me "The Spider" now would they? I'd have some badass nickname like "The Killing Death Machine with Hands of Death" ... still working on it. Point is – I'm not a fighter, henceforth, Option A is out. Option B would have been a good choice, except the last time I tried to talk myself out of something (i.e getting a swirly in the restroom) I actually convinced them further that I deserved one. Other than that though it definitely was my safest choice. So, of course, I went with Option A.

To assert my manliness I reached over and punched the snotty little bastard across from me. Darwin let my little affront slide for maybe a second, before he was lunging across the seat after me. Feeling a bit left out Lester shimmied his way into the back and on top of me, kicking the volume control up to the max with his rush to join the fun. I jammed my foot into Darwin's chest, keeping him at bay as I grappled with his much smaller brother. Jeeves, with no regard for the rules of the road or the safety of us within the veering vehicle, reached in back, groping for anyone he could find, allowing the car a moment to list off to the side and ride on the grooved cement of the shoulder. We were all shouting and hollering, but couldn't understand a goddamned word any of us said over the sound of Trivium's "Like Light to the Flies."

For several minutes that passed at the rate of five years, I fought with the two brothers. I was doing pretty good too...yanno, up until Darwin managed to get me in a choke hold and Lester began attempting to tear my leg from the socket. That was about the time I realized Option B would have been the better choice. I never was a very good test taker. The massive driver slammed his boot into the brake, cutting the wheel to the right and causing the car to twirl about like the most brutal ballerina ever. All five of us came to a stop: Darwin, Jeeves, Lester, Trivium and I.

I squinted one eye, grinding my teeth together as the leader of this ragtag group held me in the crook of his elbow, assertively tightening his grip. "Calm down."

"Get offa me," I croaked, twisting and writhing in my best attempt to make this as awkward as possible for the both of us.

"We ain't gunna hurt you,"

"Bullshit! _He_ fuckin' knocked me out!" I kicked my foot out at Lester.

"Les," he instructed over my shoulder, "Be nice." Lester hesitated at his brother's word, then grinned widely, something much akin to the way a crocodile would. Darwin nodded, "Alright then," I felt the tightness around my neck, and leg, relax and once I had the opportunity I shook him off. I sat up between the two Tremors, rubbing my neck as I caught my breath.

"Man, you fight like a girl. Watcha go an' hit me fer anyway?"

"He was gunna rip my legs off!"

"Ya whine like a girl too," Lester added.

"Like you've ever been _near_ a girl."

"Ey!" Lester made a second grab for my leg.

The driver's side door opened and I felt the car dip to the side with the shifting of the massive man's weight. And like a see-saw it rocked back into place with the removal of it, all the while we continued to bicker in the backseat.

"Have too!"

"Yeah, your mom maybe!"

"We ain't got time fer this shit," Darwin kicked open his door and slid out while Lester and I continued to throw out insults. Jeeves replaced Darwin at the door, reached in, grabbed the back of my collar and yanked me out of the car much in the way airline attendants handled baggage. I gracelessly fell into the dirt, the impact causing my brain to bounce around in my skull, bringing back the headache I'd almost been rid of.

"Let's get the hell outta here."

I lay there for a good moment, unable to get up solely because if I moved I was sure I would throw up everywhere. So, I lay there in the dirt, listening to them shuffle around in the gravel and slam their doors. When I finally gathered the courage to risk the perilous journey of sitting up, I noticed all three Tremor brothers (Larry, Curly and Moe) were in the car and I, not being a Tremor Brother, was sitting outside of said car. This was a perfect example of childhood gender-gation (or segregation by gender): No girls allowed in the Tremor Brothers' tree fort.

And they peeled off without me, tires kicking up dust and dirt as the vehicle fishtailed from side to side before gaining a straight line trajectory, speeding off to some indiscernible tune on the radio. I sat there, watching them disappear down the road and for the first time...I prayed.

Dear God. Let Trivium never produce another album.

* * *

><p>*<em>I don't even think I had ammo in any of them. I remember once putting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into one of the pockets.<em>  
><em>**I ask you to please refrain from telling him that. And if you do I will deny it up and down.<em>  
><em>***The same goes for this.<em>


	2. Chapter 2

My life thus far had landed me in the backseat of an archaic Pontiac with three of my would-be-killers, and then subsequently landed me in the middle of the desert at some run down gas station that belonged in the next installment of the Texas Chainsaw movies. So, following the cliché horror movie formula, I walked right on into that shady little dump with no regard for my personal wellbeing. I tell you, it did not disappoint. The shelves were crooked and laced with a black sludge that I could only guess was some mix of bug poop and gutter grime, the wooden paneling on the floor was warped in areas and soft like a batch of wet cookies in others. The food and snack choices here were sparse, it was either botulism in a bag or salmonella in a can and to wash it all down you could buy yourself a bottle something that looked like road tar. I marched up to the counter where I was greeted by Big Foot's long lost cousin, Chuck, a rugged looking man, with a face right where it should be (I say that because it's about the nicest thing I could think of at the moment). He gave me that look, you know the one when girls pass you by and judge you, yeah, that one. I call it the "sassy face," except "sassy face" didn't exactly look so sassy on Chuck as it did scary and completely wrong.

"Got a phone?"

You would think I had just demanded the Holy Grail the way he looked at me. He shoved the telephone to the side, hiding it away from me like the creature from Lord of the Rings. "Ain't workin,"(Translated: Nooo, my preciousessss he must not touches ittttt). I had a feeling, like Frodo and all his little hobbit friends, I was destined to hoof it all the way home, except my journey would be a lot less interesting and exciting, if that's even possible.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yep. Now you gunna buy something?"

Before you go yelling at me "LD. DON'T YOU HAVE A CELLPHONE! WHAT THE FUCK?" Yes, like every person not my age I DO in fact own a cellphone, however, let me remind you: I'm in the middle of the desert and, contrary to popular belief, Verizon does NOT have any cellphone towers disguised as cactuses. Though it's something they might want to consider looking into, what with all the cellphones being picked off of lost, dead travelers by vultures ("Hey Bill, what's up?" "Oh nothing, just eating a dead coyote carcass, you know." "Man that sounds awesome, the wife's got me hanging curtains at the nest today"). What kind of world do we live in where vultures cannot constantly text one another while simultaneously updating their facebook status, checking their twitter and pecking the eyes out of some decomposing armadillo corpse?

So, taking Chuck for his word, which was about as good as month old cheese, I didn't pursue the matter any further...even when the phone rang. I'm sure it was just the after effects of being out of commission, telephone death rattle. It's not really ringing, it's just dying. Instead, I purchased a bottle of, what we'll call, "soda", paid and left Chuck to being Chuck.

I sat outside with my soda and my cellphone that had no coverage, doing what any sensible human being would do in this situation: play "Angry Birds" until a car passed through. I sat there flinging birds at self-righteous green pigs, drinking that black sludge that had expired sometime in the last cretaceous period, kicking my feet in the dirt and occasionally looking back to give Chuck the hairy eye. I'm not sure how long I had been sitting there by the time my first prospective ride came by (or the second or third, all of which turned me down), I did notice, however, that a very hungry, very determined vulture had been sitting with me the whole time. Which was starting to make me incredibly nervous, like it knew something I didn't, like that I had left the oven on at home.

"Haha!"

"Weee!"

"PLONK!"

I may not have been able to hold my own against the Tremor Brothers, but I sure as hell could against these pigs! I wonder if the government has looked into genetically altering birds so that they could: 1. Explode into several more birds 2. Poop rocket propelled eggs on command or 3. Explode. However, with angrybirdology (the study of advancing birds into weapons of mass destruction) like this, every five year old with access to an iPhone or any other "Angry Birds" compatible device, would become a national threat. Not to mention our tactics would prove incredibly futile should our enemy decide to build fortresses of wood, glass and concrete, which, as you know, is just about what every house nower days is made of.

About the time I was knocking over one of those concrete/wooden/glass fortress combinations*, and about the time when Chuck was peeking out to see if I had finally died, a rusted old pick-up truck stocked full of road kill and tire marked animal bodies rolled up alongside one of those crooked pumps. The driver stepped out of his death-car and up to the pump. He looked at me and snorted back an immense wad of phlegm then spat it on the ground. So romantic, so debonair, so charming! And just check out the incredibly stylish duds! Coveralls splattered with the blood of every living being to ever come into contact with him, one shoe bigger than the other and half an undershirt. I wonder if there's a record in the Guinness book for "most times picked up by creepy/murderous strangers." Let me know. While you're at it, get me a Tums because I think that soda-sludge is plotting some sort of unholy revenge.

"You need a ride?"

"Goldfield."

"Vegas," he responded and with a nod to his vehicle instructed me to: "Hop in."

I would be the perfect candidate for horror movie: blissfully oblivious, hopping into random men's vehicles, driving off to what I assume to be "Vegas," when in horror-movie-reality he'd be driving me back to his mansion in the middle of the desert where his deformed son waited with a chainsaw and other implements of destruction. I, being the strongest, most able bodied victim would, of course, be first to die. And it wouldn't be pretty either, in order to draw the viewer in I'd be killed in the most ridiculous, but most badass way ever, like...tightrope walking on barbed wire while fencing with Weed Whackers. At least I had that going for me.

So, with an interesting and bright future ahead of me, I clambered up into the man's 1969 Dodge A100. Between the duct tape and bungee cords holding this beast** together I was amazed it even had seat belts. Silly me, I was expecting to have to tie myself to the seat. Now at least I could be securely strapped into this metal death trap. And should it flip over or explode I would be safely locked in without a chance to escape!

After filling the tank up, Jason Voorhees scooted back on up into the driver's seat. He gave the door a good pull, only to have it bounce off of the crooked frame and broken lock. One more tug and it slammed shut, never to open again. He turned the key in the ignition and brought the car to, what we'll call, "life," but if you ask me I would say it sounded more like lots-of-angry-cats-stuck-under-the-hood-of-the-car. But "life" is much easier.

"What's yer name, keeyod?" I'm not exactly fluent in the desert dialect, but I'm pretty sure "keeyod" is a type of vegetable.

"LD," I didn't really think it through, my brain to mouth censor currently distracted by something interesting just off camera left. "LD" and "wanted assassin" were synonymous with one another. I was only lucky that the man didn't recognize me for who I was. Not that I expected him to know much about the world outside of his sofa and a can of Mountain Dew. But hey, I'm stereotyping.

"You in the army?"

He tilted his head to the side, looking over my strange attire briefly before turning his eyes back to the road.

"Not really. But I do play a lot of Call of Duty."

Swing and a miss. I don't know why I even expected the man to have a game system. Humor, not for everyone. An awkward silence followed before he opened his mouth to engage me in more small talk.

"How'd you end up out here without no damn ride?"

He wasn't the best conversation partner, but beggars can't be choosers, at least he wasn't trying to rip my legs off...yet. "Oh yanno, what happens in Vegas, ends up in the middle of the desert."

He grinned and right then I regretted making him smile. I remember once visiting an art museum, I know crazy, a hired hit-man with an affinity*** for fine art. If there were one painting to describe everything I felt at this moment, I would have to say that painting would be "The Scream." It took all of my energy, every fiber of my being, not to shriek out at the complete and utter lack of dental hygiene as well as teeth. And that's probably why problem one was a problem. Of course that desire not to offend with my terrified and traumatized soul only caused my expression to contort into something worse. I went from delicious meal to sour-as-shit in two seconds flat as that man flashed those gums and...pearly...whites...at me.

...

I know you're out there...please, someone, anyone, save me, call a dentist, my God someone call a dentist!

"Fun night then?" he asked, eyes back on the road and thankfully not on me. And by eyes I meant teeth.

"You have no fucking clue," I managed to produce between gagging.

The ride was awkwardly quiet, those angry cats in the engine filling in the empty spaces of silence where I stared out the window hoping that the man would keep his mouth shut if only just to keep the last of his teeth in place so that I may keep all of the food I had ever eaten in _its_ place. After about thirty minutes that felt like thirty days, we pulled up onto the Vegas strip in our beat down, run down vehicle. My driver's teeth, more or less, intact, and the integrity of my scarred soul, less so intact.

"Here ya are," He pulled up alongside one of the sidewalks as he shifted into park.

I didn't want to continue talking to the man, but at the same time I didn't want to embarrass myself by getting out of the car. It was a day reminiscent of the first ever, popularity deciding, day of high school. That day where you weren't quite old enough to drive yourself, so, with no other choice, you have to let your parents drive you. And if that wasn't bad enough as soon as you scurry on out of their sight, when you finally feel safe, that's when the worst happens. They honk the horn, roll down the window, lean out as far as they can and wave like a lunatic, shouting at the top of their lungs "HAVE A GOOD DAY AT SCHOOL! I LOVE YOU!" And all you can do is pretend you don't know them and hope to God that no one saw. But it's too late. The damage has been done and your reputation is a nonexistent blip on a completely different map. Yeah. That. But, if I stayed in the car, I ran the risk of having one of those wayward teeth come flying out of my chauffeur's face the next time he risked the incredibly dangerous (for me) task of speaking. I had a very serious, very explicit fear that one of those crooked, filth enameled chompers would come flying my way, and oh my God, land in my mouth. So, paying serious mind to my phobia, I hopped on out of the car.

"Thanks for the ride," I fished out a couple of bills from my pocket and tossed it in through the open window, "-for the gas." It wasn't so much gas money as it was hey-thanks-for-driving-me, not spitting-your-teeth-out-on-me, and not-killing-me money. Three hundred bucks (that's a hundred for each fear). And it would only take him twenty minutes to lose it all in this city, probably about the same amount of time it would take for my life to turn completely around...again.

I left my ex-driver at that sidewalk, quickly slinking off into the crowd in no particular direction. I blended in as well as any military dressed woman could amongst a crowd of tourists, which meant I was about as inconspicuous as Lady Gaga at any given time of the day. Of course, her career was doing quite a bit better than mine at the moment. I don't ever recall pop stars threatening each other with different forms of torture. I don't get it, mercenaries and celebrities are practically the same: we've all been the headline of some news story at least once in our lives, we wear clothes one normally wouldn't, we've done at least one incredibly embarrassing thing in front of a lot of people and finally, we absolutely hate everyone else in the business. Though, where their fans had Beiber Fever, mine had a severe case of Very-Expensive-Bounty Syndrome. Doesn't quite flow as well.

At about the time I was crossing in front of the Bellagio and about the time some homeless man was throwing up on the sidewalk, my cellphone returned to coverage life and subsequently began ringing.

"LD? Shit! I've been trying to get a hold of you all day! You had me worried sick. What the fuck happened last night?"

"Dude, you're never going to believe this. Guess who I ran into." Like every other cellphone toting person out there, I held it proudly to my ear, speaking at a volume that said 'Look at me! I'm important and so is my conversation! You only wish you were as cool as me!'

"Matt Girard?"

"Ye-what? No! Well...yeah, I saw 'im at the grocery store yesterday, but no not him."

"I dunno, man. Who?"

"The fuckin' Tremors."

"WHAT? LD - Are you ok?"

"No man, I'm dead. I just wanted to call an' make sure you fed my cat."

"This is serious. You should be dead right now."

"I am dead, I just said that."

"Don't be an asshole."

"I'm fine, Jim. Just got a bit of a headache an' all my shit's missing."

"You're lucky that's all. They just let you go?"

"Fuck no, they dropped me in the middle of the desert."

"That's it?"

"What? Gettin' dumped in the desert isn't enough?"

"Come on, you know the stories. These guys are hard-as-fuck mercs. They should have shot you to shit and back at the Copley Building. What happened?"

"I can't remember, one'a them hit me over the head with somethin', knocked me out cold. Next thing I know they're droppin' me off in the middle of butt-fuck-nowhere. I thought I was the only one on this job?"

"That hoity-toity exec probably put you on, figured you two would shoot the shit outta one another and he wouldn't have to pay a dime. I'll check it out. Where are you now?"

"Vegas."

"Why don't you blow off some steam in one of the casinos. I'll give you a call soon as I figure this shit out. Try not to get in trouble."

"Yeah, yeah. Talk t'ya later."

* * *

><p><em>*Not a house.<em>  
><em>**Pronounced "P.O.S"<em>  
><em>***Ok, it was a homework assignment and my teacher wasn't going to pass me if I didn't do it. Excuse me for trying to sound cultured.<em>


	3. Chapter 3

"**Who is the Deadly Spider?"**

I never wanted to be a hitman. Never wanted to hit, never wanted to be a man, but hey, that's what happened. The hitting part, not so much the man part.

It started when I was fifteen. And no, I didn't just wake up and decide to be a vigilante murderer, these things take time. But, in all honesty, I had always been a weird kid, weird in the "collects spiders instead of Barbies" kind of way. I didn't have many friends, not because the other kids didn't like me, but because I always had to bring the creepy-crawlies along. Apparently girls don't like them - actually, not many guys do either. Spider did - I mean me, Spider, not the spiders themselves, though I'm sure they like themselves, unless they're spiders with self-esteem issues in which case there might not be as much liking going around.

At six I had a pet tarantula named Greg. My mom had been opposed to the idea of a pet spider, but my dad, thankfully, was on my side. I think in part only to watch my mom squirm every time I took Greg out for a "walk." As I grew, so did my collection. I became an arachnologist, collecting spiders – small spiders, big spiders, hairy spiders, ugly spiders, creepy spiders, spiders missing a leg - any spiders. I kept them in empty jam jars. My mom hated it. Let me emphasize hated -my mom _**HATED **_it, bold font, italicize, 12 point font.

At 18 I had a pretty extensive collection of creepy crawlies. About 185 to be exact, each one with a name (they were all named Fred. Made things easy). At 19 my father left and mom, well, mom had decided that it was in my (pronounced: Her) best interest if me and all my 233 spiders left as well. So I left by way of being dragged out by two policemen accompanied by a restraining order. (Ok I _MAY _have left some critical parts of my childhood out that led up to this point).

I crashed on my friend's couch for another couple of months. His name was Jim (remember him? The guy who called me on the phone), who despite growing up in a predominantly Portuguese family only knew how to say one thing, "você brincar comigo." He wasn't exactly _right _either, not directionally, mentally. He collected rocks shaped like dicks and set them up around the place. But he didn't mind the spiders, and I didn't mind the cock-rocks.

Four months rolled by and with little more to my name then a museum of spiders and a piss poor job behind the local CVS's cash register, I went and found myself a job. A real [illegal] job. Some rich bastard put the green light on this bad-toupee in a cheap suit. This guy wanted him dead - and bad - we're talking a couple hundred Gs bad. Now if you ask me, $9.45 an hour wasn't exactly a fair comparison to that kind of money. So I took the job. Jim was hurting for cash and decided he'd accompany me, which I didn't mind. If you're jumping into the deep end you might as well have a friend with you - if you start to drown, pray-to-fucking-god they can swim. So I bought my first gun, a real P.O.S that the dealer ASSURED me was top of the line. It might as well have had a little flag with the word "Bang!" on it that popped out when fired, because the thing jammed before I even got a shot off.

Bad-Toupee, that mother fucker, laughed at us, so I threw the 13 gauge P.O.S at him. I missed, he laughed harder. Jim was too busy being shit-scared. Thankfully for us the guy felt sorry for us, called us a few names and told us to get out of his sight before he called his goons in to take us out - with REAL guns that REALLY worked. Well fuck him, right? No way was I letting my first job label me the laughing stock of hitmen. So I jumped him.

Now Greg and I had had a good run, but it was time to part ways. While Bad-Toupee was unconcious, bleeding, duct taped to his Ikea swivel chair that was probably missing half the pieces - Greg and I said our goodbyes. I introduced him to his new home, Bad-Toupee's mouth and sealed the door with a strip of duct-tape. That poor guy regained consciousness just as Greg was making his way down his throat.

The cops had a hard time figuring out what happened to the guy. At first they thought blunt-force trauma because of, yanno, the whole beating his ass deal. But when they got him into the Medical Examiner's office - boy were they surprised! What I would have given to see their faces when they found my sweet little Chinese Bird Spider nestled in the throat of their Vic.

And I know what you're thinking. "Ewwww, LD that's gross," you may have squealed like a little girl too. But you know what's gross? Eyebrow threading. Alright? **THAT'S **gross

Anyway, I've wasted enough time here, let's get back to Vegas.

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><p>Vegas, I found, is a lot like Disney World, except the people are a lot less happy and a lot more drunk. Unless you're there with a screaming three year old (Disney, not Vegas), in which case I'd say the experience is about the same. It's a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of bright lights and a ton of buildings, each stocked with about five hundred thousand slot machines that really aren't so different at all save for the face plate. Jim's suggestion had been to blow my "hard earned" cash in the city of don't-ask-don't-tell-seriously-if-you-tell-I'll-find-you-and-cut-you. I'm not one for gambling, but given the situation I was in it would be stupid not to. Come on, who goes to Vegas to do anything else? You're not having a good time until you lost the deed to your home!<p>

Vegas is an ass-backwards kind of place. The casinos are all themed, running down the strip from far-out to down-right boring. But here's the kicker, those extravagant hotels are the cheap ones. If you want to spend a fortune in Vegas (that's not on the slots or tables) you want to go stay in one of those hoity-toity joints like Caesar's Palace. All of the expense and none of the fun. But I guess that's what old-farts like – to be old farts, with no sense of fun. I, on the other hand, LOVE fun. I thrive on it. Fun is _fun_. If I'm staying in Vegas, I'm having fun dammit.

I made my way into the Excalibur hotel, a building sculpted to the visage of a medieval castle and painted by a visually impaired squirrel. A pair of knights guarded the doors, offering a lazed greeting to the tourists (I, of course, being one of those tourists).

"Welcome to the Excalibur, enjoy your Knight."

As soon as I stepped over that threshold, I was bombarded with lights and sounds: the ringing of machines, the cheers of winners who were soon to be losers, couples arguing over what shows they wanted or didn't want to see and of course the heavy metal anthem of Trivium.

That's right – it followed me here,  
>All.<br>The goddamned.  
>Way.<p>

I must have some seriously bad luck for something like that to happen. Honestly, what are the chances of that? Trivium isn't exactly the music of the Medieval times, bagpipes and harps, fancy shit like that maybe, but definitely not melt-your-face-off-Trivium. Fuck.

And then I realized it. The big IT. I-T, just like that, except maybe italicized - _IT_.

You know when you got to that point in life when things have just gotten so incredibly bad and you realize just how bad they are and they just CAN'T possibly get any worse unless, of course, you were on fire? I had made it there. I was right then, in that moment.

That IT, the Big _It_ - was the sudden realization that Trivium's lyrical prowess did not, in fact, grace the sound speakers of the hotel, but were in fact coming from outside. Just outside those double doors, beyond the Knights and their horrible puns, parked up on the sidewalk, with a confused valet trying desperately to turn the volume down, finding the volume knob had become stuck, forever, at the loudest possible setting – that 1966 Pontiac Bonneville – that was where it was coming from. The big SH**_IT_**.

* * *

><p><em>AN: We'll be getting back to the Tremors in just a moment. Sorry for the delay on this guys, thanks though to all that stuck through! I'll do my best to keep on this! _


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